Indigenizing Critical whiteness: Deconstruction of Vā-Relational Practices in Aotearoa-New Zealand University Settings

Although abject physical forms of colonization may no longer visible, white privilege and cultural colonization continues to fester in university structures, knowledge and disciplinary architectures, curriculum design, as well as research and pedagogical practices. This chapter takes an Indigenous Moana talatalanoa of whiteness and its impact on whenua-based education praxis through vā-decoloniality, an analytical frame that confronts ethico-relational-onto-epistemological meaning-making in Aotearoa-New Zealand higher education. Adopting e–talanoa as a method within talatalanoa practice, the chapter utilizes the authors’ online interactions through digital modes to capture their ongoing conversations of whiteness and its implications on education praxis on Aotearoa-New Zealand whenua. Embracing the “difficult histories at sites of colonial violence” in higher education is a shift towards the intentional privileging of Indigenization practices, and the creation of safe and generative spaces that visibilize and confront the perpetual oppression and marginalization of Indigenous knowledge and practices.